Sunday, April 6, 2014

Finding Beauty in Tragedy

I like to believe that I write crime fiction for the same
reasons I’m a newspaper crime reporter — no other stories have the depth and
breadth of life, the joys, the sorrows, or the bittersweet poignancy that crime
stories do.

Sometimes, if we do our jobs right, we are able to unearth
the beautiful in the tragic.

For instance, last weekend at the newspaper was a rough one.
I pissed someone off — someone who was grieving the death of a friend. When I
came in to work the night shift I was handed a story about some college-age
kids whose home had burned down. One kid was in critical condition at the
hospital.

Shortly after I got to work, we got the news — he didn’t
make it.

All his friends were talking about it on Facebook. I left a
message on one page saying I was sorry for their loss and that if anyone wanted
to talk to me about their friend, here was my number. I thought it was
unobtrusive, but it made one girl very angry.

She asked why I didn’t wait longer before I left my message.

I couldn’t tell her the truth, which was that if we waited a
day or two, at that point, a new tragedy would have captured reader’s interest.
It’s awful, but true. I couldn’t tell her I had a limited amount of time and a
limited amount of space to let people know a few details about this young man,
to tell them something that would make him seem real to readers, so he was more
than just a faceless victim. That is my job.

It isn’t always easy, but I feel a great responsibility to
do this, so that when someone dies they are more than just a name in the paper.

So I just told this girl that I was very sorry for her loss
and wished her well.

I also couldn’t tell her the story that makes me reach out
to grieving friends and family, even when I don’t want to do so:

Years ago, I was at the Monterey (Calif.) Herald newspaper
when I noticed a husband and wife had died within 24 hours of one another and
decided to write a story about it.

I reached the couple’s daughter-in-law who told me what had
happened: the wife had a stroke and died instantly. When the husband saw her
body being taken away, he had a heart attack and died a few hours later.

This woman, Diane, told me about the love her in-laws had
shared for the past 50 years. How they came over from Mexico and had worked in
the fields picking lettuce since they were 18. How they raised six children and
sent four of them to medical school this way.
I was immediately captured by this love story — this couple’s life
story, really.

Diane invited me to come to the wake the next day so I could
talk to the couple’s other children.
When I arrived, I was told Diane was on her way and to wait
inside. The house was packed with mourners. I stood in the corner feeling about
as awkward and out of place as I ever have in my life.

Finally Diane arrived and herded all the siblings and me
into a bedroom to talk. I explained that I wanted to write about their parent’s
great love story.

One of the couple’s daughters glared at me and said, “I’m
not talking to you. I got nothing to say to you!”

Saying she was hostile is an understatement.

However, before long everyone was sharing stories with me
and laughing and crying — everyone except the one daughter who continued
glaring at me.

I went back to the office and wrote my story, adding in some
quotes from doctors who said they truly believed someone could die of a broken
heart.

About a month later, I got a little envelope in the mail.
Inside was a thank you card:

“Thank you so much for writing about my parents. I was the
one who didn’t want to talk to you. But I’m so glad you were there. Your
article is now a treasured keepsake in our family. Thank you so much.”

And so that, that right there, is why I make those painful
calls and visits to grieving family and friends. It’s about finding the beauty,
the hope, the love, and the basic goodness of people in a tragedy. And if I
don’t care enough to make that call, then who will?

My question for you writer and reader friends:

What speaks to you about crime fiction? Why do you pick up
these types of books over and over or — if you are a writer — continue to pen
these types of novels?

4 comments:

What a great post, Kristi. That is a letter to keep framed on your wall. And yes, the crime stories I write are usually elegies, to people I know, knew, or empathized with. Their stories live on in those who knew them.

Kristi,I read, and write, crime for a very selfish reason. Feeling out of control and small and insubstantial and unable to affect any real change in the world, crime fiction makes me feel differently. For those moments I get to feel justice has been done and that I am in control and powerful and unstoppable; that the world is balanced again.